


Moments That Make Us

by tjmystic



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Dean Winchester Has Abandonment Issues, Dean Winchester Has Anger Issues, Dean Winchester Has Nightmares, Dean Winchester Has PTSD, Dean Winchester Has Self-Esteem Issues, Dean Winchester Has Self-Worth Issues, Dean Winchester Has Trust Issues, Dean Winchester Has a Heart, Episode: s04e01 Lazarus Rising, F/M, Hell Trauma, I hate that all of these are actual tags, M/M, POV Dean Winchester, Post-Hell Dean Winchester, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-12-01
Updated: 2021-01-31
Packaged: 2021-03-09 18:21:08
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 7,384
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27820645
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/tjmystic/pseuds/tjmystic
Summary: Knowing Dean changed Castiel for the better. But knowing Cas did the same for Dean. Because the show decided that that wasn't worth talking about, though, here's Dean's perspective on each of the moments in the series where his relationship with Cas changed.
Relationships: Castiel & Dean Winchester, Castiel/Dean Winchester, Dean Winchester & Sam Winchester
Comments: 2
Kudos: 14





	1. Angel

**Author's Note:**

> Note that I'll be updating the rating and tags as I add more chapters. This first chapter takes place at the end of 4x1 "Lazarus Rising".

Dean was pretty sure that he and Bobby were prepared for anything when they walked into this barn in middle-of-nowhere, Illinois. Vampires, aliens, Hellboy, the freaking Joker—Bobby apparently had a sigil for all of it. Just one look at the walls (and ceiling, and floor) of the place is a testament to that. And that isn’t even counting the arsenal of iron stakes, silver knives, and salt-rounds they’d dragged out of the truck. Not that Dean was some slouch. He had three guns. He had Ruby’s knife. He had his plucky, can-do attitude. They could handle this, even without Sam.

At least, he'd thought they could. 

Bobby is still out cold a few feet away. The lightbulbs—what’s left of them—are still flickering. And this… _thing_ , Castiel, is still staring at him. Five whole seconds, and it hasn’t blinked once. Hasn’t made good on its demand to talk to him in private, either.

Five seconds is about four more than Dean can handle. Fists clenched—not that that’s gonna do any good, based on how it reacted to bullets and the knife—he makes a wide circle around the thing and heads for Bobby. Castiel either gets the hint or gets bored with the prolonged eye contact, because it finally looks away from Dean and toward the plethora of unused stuff on the nearest table. It pokes at a bag of salt without so much as a flinch, then looks right, apparently taking a special interest in one of Bobby’s sigil books. Dean can’t say that the thing is expressive. It ain’t easy to read at all, and that’s just another thing to hate. But Dean thinks it almost looks… amused.

Mouth drawn, Dean rushes the last couple of steps to Bobby and kneels down beside him. He knew the second Bobby hit the deck that the old man wasn’t dead. He doesn’t know _how_ he knew, he just… did. But that’s too close to trusting this thing for his comfort, so he tests Bobby’s pulse all the same. Sure enough, it’s just fine. Ain’t quiet. Ain’t thready. He might as well be sleeping off a hangover.

“Your friend’s alive.”

Castiel’s voice sends a shiver down his spine. Dean’s eyes narrow, and he uses it to his advantage. He looks pissed, and he knows it. Hopefully, that means he doesn’t look like he’s scared shitless (or irritated that, after everything he’s seen, something still _can_ scare him shitless). It doesn’t matter either way, though—Castiel’s still looking at the damn book. Just… reading. The bullet holes are gone from its jacket, and the hole where Ruby’s knife went stitched itself right up, and Bobby isn’t dead, and Dean…

Dean keeps his fists clenched.

“Who are you?”

“Castiel.”

If Dean didn’t know it wouldn’t do him any good, he’d slap the thing. But, then, it doesn’t really seem to be jerking him around, either. Dean asked it a question. The thing just answered literally. Can’t really blame it for that, even if it pisses him off.

He grits his teeth. “Yeah, I figured that much, I mean _what_ are you?”

He waits for another smartass answer. Or maybe the name of some creature Dean ain’t ever heard of. He mentally runs through every page of Dad’s journal he can remember and wishes he hadn’t left the damn thing with Sam.

Castiel turns and looks him dead in the eye.

“I’m an Angel of the Lord.”

Dean’s blood runs cold. Fuck. Yeah, they were prepared for everything his ass.

Phlegm catches in his throat. He swallows it back like the pro he is and squares his shoulders.

“Get the hell out of here.” He chooses his words wisely. “There’s no such thing.”

The thing doesn’t look all that concerned with Dean’s threat. With his doubts. It just levels him that same, soul-searing stare and grumbles, “That is your problem, Dean. You have no faith.”

Well, at least there’s one thing this _Castiel_ got right. He’s sure as fuck out of faith. He wants it to be a lie. Fucking _needs_ it to be a lie. There is no God. There is no greater good. Everything is just random and evil and pointless and there ain’t a damn thing he or anyone else can do to stop it. That’s the only fucking way that his life—any of it, all of it—makes a damn bit of a sense.

But Castiel stands, his arms barely outstretched, and the room inside the barn crackles like thunder. A bright light fills everything. It shines up Castiel’s eyes, a deep unnatural blue, and then— _wings_. Two great black wings. Big enough to fill the fucking barn, made out of the fucking thunder.

There was only one chance of denying this. Wings or not, he could still maintain that this is all a trick. Fucking Chris Angel can make fancy shadow puppets. Who the fuck knows what Castiel is capable of?

He had one chance. But he recognized those wings. He’d seen them. _Felt_ them. Sammy doesn’t know, and Sammy doesn’t need to know, but he remembers every fucking day he spent in Hell. Every single one but his last. Only one memory stands out from those final moments, and, until now, he was sure that that memory was something his brain had cooked up on its own. The memory is a flash of light, an unimaginable shape in the darkness… and a pair of pitch-black wings.

Castiel isn’t a demon. He isn’t some run-of-the-mill monster-of-the-week. And Castiel isn’t lying.

He’s an angel.

There are a lot of things that could hit Dean with this revelation, and he’s expecting uncomprehending denial to be the first. Much as he hates himself for it, he’s expecting fear to be the second. And both of those things are lurking in the back of his brain, ready to spring forward, but that’s not what comes out of Dean’s mouth. What comes out is anger. Because, if this _Castiel_ is an angel, then that means it has the power to raze hell. To destroy demons. And that means it could have gotten Azazel. It could have stopped Meg. Alistair. It could have saved their mom. It could have saved Sam. It could have stopped Dean from going to hell. And what did it do instead? It blinded poor Pamela. It wrecked a hotel room like some Hollywood A-lister on a bender. It destroyed a gas station and Dean’s eardrums.

If his knees weren’t wobbling, he’d have his hands wrapped round its neck, holding till its eyes turned red and it ran out of breath.

“Some angel you are,” he hisses. “You burned out that poor woman’s eyes.”

“I warned her not to spy on my true form.” Castiel looks down, shaking its head and frowning. It looks… it looks almost _sorry_. Dean wants so hard not to give it an inch lest it take a mile from him, but he finds himself… _believing_. Believing that it actual feels guilt, anyway. “It can be… overwhelming, to humans, and so can my real voice. But you already knew that.”

Real voice? What the hell is it…?

Wait. Wait, he doesn’t mean…

Castiel stares back at him like they’re sharing some bit of common knowledge.

Dean swallows. “You mean the gas station and the motel. That was you _talking_?”

And yep, there it is—Castiel nods. Dean’s breath whooshes out of him like he’s trying not to drown. Angel. This thing is a fucking _angel_.

Thank… well, Castiel’s boss, he thinks… that his first defense to that is pure sarcasm.

“Buddy, next time, lower the volume.”

It doesn’t look irritated. He wishes it would. It just purses its lips and looks _sorry_ again. “That was my mistake. Certain people—special people—can perceive my true visage. I thought you would be one of them. I was wrong.”

Castiel appraises him in a way Dean wishes wasn’t so familiar. It’s the same look he used to get from teachers in middle and high school, a watered down version of the patented “John Winchester’s disappointed in you” glare. Looks like it’s not only humans Dean lets down. What kind of fuckup does he have to be that monsters are disappointed in him now?

( _Angel_ , his brain reminds him. _Castiel is an angel._ Of course _he’s disappointed in you, dumbass_.)

Dean elects to ignore his internal commentary as usual.

“And what _visage_ are you in now, huh? What, holy tax accountant?”

“This?” He pulls back his trenchcoat like _that’s_ the only part Dean is talking about. Maybe to him, there’s no difference. “This is… a vessel.”

Bile catches where the phlegm used to be in his throat. Fine, this thing is an angel. Whatever. But vessel, meatsuit—it’s all the same fucking thing. Different terminology for the exact same crime. And to think he was _trusting_ this… this…

“You’re _possessing_ some poor bastard?”

“He’s a devout man, he actually prayed for this.”

Castiel doesn’t miss a beat, it seems, and Dean wishes he could say the same for himself. That he could have realized this was a trick right from the get-go. If there is a God, possession’s gotta be one of the worst sins out there. The soul version of rape. And God's got his angels out here doing it now. That this thing almost had him convinced to trust some… _soul-raper_ , makes his chest constrict.

“Well, I’m not buying what you’re selling. So who are you, really?”

It frowns. Fucking _frowns_. Like _Dean_ is the disappointment here. “I told you.”

“Right. And why would an angel rescue me from Hell?”

“Good things do happen, Dean.”

Dean’s spine stiffens, his nails bite into his palms. He wants to laugh in its face. He wants to tell it that it’s fucking naïve if it believes in “good things”. Especially if it believes that they exist in Dean’s world.

He wants to. But fuck if his eyes don’t water instead. If his throat doesn’t close up. If it doesn't get harder to breathe.

“Not in my experience.”

And Castiel notices. He hears him. “What’s the matter?” And then its eyes go wide. Mournful. Like it’s cracked the code, the case, the whole shebang. It looks into Dean’s eyes and Dean feels it down his soul, the thing he only knows he has because of all the torture it went through the last forty years. It looks at Dean’s soul, and it _sees_. And Dean feels more naked, more exposed, then he ever did in Alistair’s hands. “You don’t think you deserve to be saved?”

He’s not touching that. He’s not touching it because he _can’t_ , it _can’t_ , there’s no way, there’s just—

“Why’d you do it?” he blurts out.

“Because God commanded it. Because we have work for you.”

It says it like it’s some big proclamation. Like he’s suddenly gonna drop his weapons and go, “Oh, God has _work_ for me? Well that changes everything, sign me up!” And that shows just how little this fucking thing knows, because, a few years back, when he and Sam first put this shitshow back on the road, his little brother told him some bullshit about a psyche course he took at Stanford. At least, Dean let him think it was bullshit, because he wasn’t about to be getting all touchy-feely with the kid he raised. You don’t do that. But he listened to all of it, alright, and he knows about “ineffective coping mechanisms” and “PTSD” and “triggering phrases” and all that.

Work? The fact that the Almighty wants him the same way everyone else does—to do the fucking job and keep his head down—is about the most triggering thing this _angel_ could say to him.

“Yeah, well, _God_ ,” he puts all the disgust he genuinely feels into that single word, “fucked up, buddy. I’m not exactly Moses here.”

“I’m well aware. Moses has been dead for thousands of years. And he was able to witness a manifestation of my Father’s light without injury. A personal visitation from the Host wasn’t necessary.”

Dean can’t tell if that was supposed to be a joke. Castiel’s voice is still at that five-packs-a-day register, and he doesn’t particularly look sarcastic. Dean decides not to find it funny.

“I’m not the posterboy for good deeds, alright? You—you snatched me from fucking _Hell_ , doesn’t that say enough?”

Castiel looks at him. And looks at him. Its eyes narrow a bit, head tilted, as if it’s trying to see something a little clearer. Dean doesn’t know why it bothers—what you see is what you get with Dean, and it’s seen everything there is about him.

The thing apparently disagrees.

“There are things you do not know, Dean. Things you cannot see. But it is not my responsibility to teach them to you.” It gives Dean another onceover, unblinking, then turns away. “I have important business to attend elsewhere. Do not summon me again. I will be in touch.”

“Hey, wait a goddamn second, you can’t just—”

Too late. Dean reaches out to grab it, but Castiel is already gone, leaving nothing behind but a flash of black and a sound like crows flying.

Dean stands there, dumb, hand still hovering in midair. One of the lights gives another twitch, hiccupping a couple sparks onto the ground before it goes dead. Bobby lets out a snort, but, otherwise, doesn’t budge an inch. Dean _tries_ , he does, to… to focus, or something. Something fucking useful. But all he can do is slump forward, body shaking and cold even with the summer heat and his leather jacket. His eyes, his nose, burn like he’s inhaled smoke, and all he wants to do is slap himself. He hates crying. _Hates_ it. He’s Dean Winchester; he ain’t a little bitch. But that itchy, watery feeling has been chasing him for a while.

He just… he feels so _old_. And he doesn’t remember ever feeling like it before. That _Lord of the Rings_ quote, that thing about butter spread over too much bread… He’s related to it before, in ways that nobody under thirty ever should have. He’s had his fair share of long days. The day mom died. When dad was possessed by Azazel, and then the car wreck. Losing Sam…

He shakes his head, and a tear rolls down his nose. That’s not a thought he needs to be dwelling on. He did enough of that while he was on the rack—it was one of Alistair’s favorite torture porn scenarios, making him watch his brother die in his arms over, and over, and over again. He’s fucking done with it.

But he ain’t done feeling ancient. Forty years will do that to a man. Forty years crammed into four months, every last one of ‘em spent burning and dying and killing and… and…

 _You don’t think you deserve to be saved_.

He sniffs back the tears, fist clenched. That thing looked him dead in the eye, like that was something that people just _did_ , and said that into his damn face. And Dean can’t make the words go away. Like everything else about Castiel, those fucking words are ringing around in his head like bells, underscored with the screams and sex and surgical noises that he’d promised Sam he couldn’t remember. The fact that he _can_ , that he _knows_ , that he _deserves_ …

 _You don’t think you deserve to be saved_.

Roaring, he grips his head with both hands and kicks at the table, scraping it across the floor a good few feet before the damn thing topples over. The bang when it hits the ground settles his nerves, at least for the moment. Hell is gone. Alistair is gone. And _this_ is real. The sigils, the weapons, the tools, Bobby—this is real. This is what matters. Thinking, worrying, about anything else is just a trip to the loony bin waiting to happen. And that isn’t something he can afford. He’s got things to hunt. People to protect. Sammy to look after. The fuck cares what some _Angel of the Goddamn Lord_ has to say. There is no higher purpose than that. He knows his job. He knows his place.

He takes a deep breath, cursing on the exhale, then steps away. Ruby’s knife is exactly where Castiel dropped it, bloodless and scratched. It fits easily into his palm, like every knife has for the last… But he stops himself and shoves it away. It fits just as well in his back pocket.

Dean turns around, then rolls up his sleeves.

“Well, Bobby, here’s hopin’ you started a new diet while I was dead..." 


	2. Monster

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Takes place at the end of episode 4x2 (Lazarus Rising)

Sleep doesn’t come easy.

That’s been true for most of Dean’s life, but tonight is one of the worst. After this “Rising of the Witnesses” crap, he’ll be surprised if he gets his full four hours anytime soon. He blinks, and it’s Meg. Rolls over, and Henrikson. Counts to ten, and Ronald. Every move, every twitch, conjures up another fucking person he’s let down. Another person whose death he caused.

That would be bad enough. But he keeps coming back to Sam on top of it. And Castiel.

Fucking frustrating as it is, it makes sense that Sammy believes in this God and angels bullshit. The good people who believe in God believe it because they’re too friggin’ _good_ to believe they could be that way without a divine helping hand. They don’t think they’ve earned that goodness with their own blood, sweat, and tears. No, it has to be some kind of undeserved gift from a doting, Heavenly father.

Dean knows better.

He knows what Sam thinks about him, his doubts, his denial. And he knows Bobby probably believes the same thing. In Dean’s little world, the shit that’s happened to Sammy, and Bobby, and mom, and dad, and all those people they couldn’t save is all because of random happenstance or whatnot. If that’s the way it is, he can live with it. It sucks, and a part of him will never recover from it, but he’ll deal. If there’s something out there, though? Something that let it all happen—or, worse, _made it_ all happen? That’s just too much. Too goddamn much.

And sure. That’s _part_ of the problem Dean has with this.

But just part.

Cause, see, Dean stopped believing in God when he was about six. That’s when it finally sunk in that praying wouldn't bring Mom back. That _he_ was the mom, now, for both Sammy and himself. It was the year he learned what it meant to be a killer. He’d known death and Hunting since he was four, but it took John shoving a shotgun in his hands, pointing it at a ghoul, and telling him to shoot to really understand either.

Dean saw God in that thing’s hollowed eyes. He knew God when John patted him on the shoulder, told him for the first time in nearly two years that he was proud of him. He saw Him in the mirror that night before he cuddled up with Sammy. And he knew He didn’t give a good goddamn.

Castiel might be “proof” for Bobby and Sammy that God is right here with them. It isn’t for Dean. Dean hasn’t believed in Him less.

There’s a reason he didn’t tell Sam and Bobby why he doesn’t have faith. It ain’t because he wants to be right that there is no God. It’s because there is, but He ain’t on their side. He wouldn’t have singled out Dean, especially at this point, if He was.

His eyes flutter open. He’s not sure why, at first. Doesn’t even remember making the decision to stop trying to sleep. He squints, cursing Bobby and that damn floodlight he keeps over the kitchen window, and rolls over to see a trenchcoat by the sink.

He glances back up at the couch immediately, even though he can already feel that Sam’s still there. Safe. And, yep, sure enough, he’s passed out cold, hugging the blanket, like they aren’t in the middle of some holy shitshow. Dean finds himself more relieved than annoyed. Sam and Bobby have had a day—they both deserve to sleep it off. Besides, this conversation he just knows is about to happen isn’t something he wants an audience for. Given that Castiel showed up in the kitchen and hasn’t made any move to come closer, he agrees. He’s just standing there. Watching Dean.

Watching Dean.

Dean rolls back over, stills. His stomach feels like a lead weight. You spend a year or two in the life, you start recognizing what it feels like when someone, some _thing_ , is casing you. You learn to tap into signals your body sends you to keep you safe. That chill that rushes your spine. Raises the hair on the back of your neck. Gets your adrenaline pumping. You recognize it, or you die. You manage to spend your whole life like this, like Dean has, and those sensations become second nature.

Lying here, looking at Castiel looking at him, he doesn’t feel any of those things.

That lead weight gets heavier. He’s only been topside for a week, and, already, it’s getting to him. Instead of honing those nerves, making him better at noticing the evil he’s been face-to-fucking-face with for 40 goddamn years, it’s made him soft. Compared to Hell, to the rack, Bobby’s feels safe. He should know better than that, though. He should know better than to take that safety for granted.

But that’s exactly what he’s done. There’s no other explanation for how he could be so comfortable having a capital-A Angel creep on him. At least he had enough sense to check on Sammy first. At least he didn’t get complacent there.

If he wasn’t already pissed, he sure is now.

Slowly, stiffly, he rolls to his feet.

“Excellent job with the witnesses.”

Castiel says it dry as two-day-old toast, but not insincere. Unused to honesty that doesn’t lash out with barbs as Dean is, he doesn’t let it faze him. He keeps moving forward, jaw slack with fury, his eyes gleaming with it. After this thing pulled the angelic equivalent of the “don’t call me, I’ll call you” spiel, he didn’t expect to hear from it so soon. For it to have the nerve to do it _now_ …

“You were hip to all this?”

“I was, uh, made aware.”

Well, _that’s_ not suspicious. This thing is all-knowing, the fuck is he trying to pull with this “made aware” bullshit?

“Well, thanks a lot for the angelic assistance,” he snaps, bleeding out every ounce of his disgust, his frustration. “You know, I almost got my heart ripped out of my chest!”

It huffs at him, _huffs_ , all amused like Dean’s a fucking toddler who doesn’t realize that tripping off the merry-go-round isn’t a life-or-death situation.

“But you didn’t.”

Dean’s blood runs cold. His thoughts from earlier, the ones that chased his brain away from sleep, steamroll right back into him. This holier-than-thou fucking prick is the thing that Sam’s been believing in all these years? _This_ is the thing he thinks will keep them all safe?

The words are out of his mouth before he can stop them. Well before he can paint them with the anger of speaking on Sammy’s behalf instead of lashing out from his own hurt.

“I thought angels were supposed to be guardians. Fluffy wings,” not jet black ones, “halos,” not human hair, “you know, Michael Landon,” not diet Dr. Sexy with no game and a trenchcoat. “Not dicks.”

Castiel smirks. Not quick enough, though. Expressionless as this thing is, Dean’s starting to get the hang of it. He saw that a few of his barbs landed. He’s not sure which ones, but, at this moment, he doesn’t care.

“Read the Bible,” it grouses. “Angels are warriors of God. I’m a soldier.”

“Yeah? Then why didn’t you fight?”

_Why didn’t you do something instead of sit on your ass like a fucking coward?_

Castiel clicks its tongue. “I’m not here to perch on your shoulder. We had larger concerns.”

“Concerns?”

Dean sees red. In the shadows of the floodlight, he sees Meg. Ronald. Henrikson. Ash. Mom. Dad. Sam. Every single person he’s failed to save. Every single person he’s ever watched die. He sees it in the shadow of the floodlights, and not at all in the blacks of Castiel’s eyes. Not like he sees it in his own when he works up the nerve to look in the mirror.

There are no “larger concerns” than a human’s life.

He steps closer.

“There were people getting torn to shreds down here! And, by the way, while all _this_ is going on, where the hell is your boss, huh, if there _is_ a God?”

“There’s a God.”

“I’m not convinced.” Castiel opens its mouth, undoubtedly about to issue some more school marm shit like Dean’s an ignorant child, but he ain’t having that. “Cause if there’s a God, what the hell is He waiting for, huh? Genocide? Monsters roaming the Earth? The freaking apocalypse? At what point does He lift a damn finger and help the poor bastards that are stuck down here?”

“The Lord works—”

 _Oh FUCK no._ “If you say ‘in mysterious ways’, so help me, I will kick your ass.”

Castiel lifts his hands and looks away. And Dean… Dean’s chest does a weird thing, like his heart doesn’t know if it wants to stop beating or go into overdrive. He just made a fucking angel shut it. Nobody ever just shuts up. Not any other monster. Sure as hell not Dad. Fuck, not even Sammy.

Nobody ever gives him a second to catch his breath and think.

He wants to feel vindicated. Victorious. All he feels is small and fucking afraid. If this is what it feels like to win, Dean doesn’t want it. Not when the prize is his own damn thoughts, his own damn common sense connecting dots across the grid.

Bigger things. Bigger concerns. Bigger than Dean. Bigger than anything. He said the A word, and Castiel didn’t argue.

Castiel swings his head back around, that same fucking smirk on his lips.

“So, Bobby was right. About the witnesses. This is some kind of a sign of the Apocalypse.”

“That’s why we’re here. Big things afoot.”

Big. Yeah, holy fuck they’re big. Way too big. Way above Dean’s paygrade. Capital-fucking-A-Apocalypse. His heart is still hammering.

“Do I want to know what kind of things?”

“I sincerely doubt it. But you need to know.” He’s got that same dry tone, raspy as sandpaper on gravel. He looks at Dean like he’s about to share the secrets of the universe with him. Dean’s too tired already to tell him he doesn’t want it. “The rising of the witnesses is one of the 66 seals.”

“Okay, I’m guessing that’s not a show at Seaworld.”

“Those seals are being broken by Lilith.”

Great, and now Dean doesn’t even get a second to be disappointed that Castiel didn’t take the bait. Those damn dots just keep connecting.

“She did the spell. She rose the witnesses.”

“Mm-hmm.” Dean’s brain is back up and running, over a mile a minute. He knows what Castiel’s gonna say before he ever says it. It doesn’t take away the feeling of being stabbed through the neck. “And not just here. Twenty other Hunters are dead.”

Meg. “Of course.” Ronald. Henrikson. “She picked victims that the Hunters couldn’t save.” Mom. Dad. “So that they would barrel right after us.” Sam.

“Lilith has a certain sense of humor.”

It doesn’t help that Castiel finds her just about as funny as Dean does.

He steps closer, smug for the first time all fucking week. Screw Lilith, he did his job. “Well, we put those spirits back to rest.”

“It doesn’t matter. The seal was broken.”

And… well. Should’ve known. Just like every other one of Dean’s victories, this one means fuck-all.

His palms have to be bleeding as tight as he’s clenched his fists, but he doesn’t break eye contact. Doesn’t look down at all.

“Why break the seal anyway?”

“You think of the seals as locks on a door.”

“Okay. Last one opens, and…?”

For the first time, Castiel hesitates. Not from nervousness, or because he’s about to spout off some bullshit lie. Dean would recognize those right away, even on Castiel. No, no this means something serious. More serious than what they’ve already gotten into. Dean doesn’t know what that could possibly be, and he wants off the fucking ride now. He shouldn’t have asked. He shouldn’t have—

“Lucifer walks free.”

Castiel keeps staring at him. Into him. Through him. But, for just a split second, he might as well not even be there. All Dean sees is Alastair. All he sees is the rack, and all of the godforsaken demons that spanned its depths. Every pair of black eyes. Every river of blood. Every broken soul in fire and tar and gunk.

“Lucifer?” The name sticks to his tongue. “But I thought Lucifer was just a story they told at Demon Sunday School.” Except they didn’t. Forty years in Hell, and never, not once, did any of them say, even _hint_ … “There’s no such thing.”

“Three days ago, you thought there was no such thing as me.”

And there it is. That fucking smirk from before. Dean wishes he felt anything other than empty. That he could get up the nerve to punch it off Castiel’s face. But there’s no air in his lungs, and the room feels like it’s shrinking, and he’s lived nearly 70 years all told and _never once_ —

“Why do you think we’re here?” Castiel continues, softer now, almost gentle. “Walking among you, now, for the first time in 2000 years?”

“To stop Lucifer.” The name steals whatever breath he had left.

“That’s why we’ve arrived.”

This is big. Too big. Lucifer. The devil. Freaking Satan himself. Dean couldn’t even keep his little brother safe. How’s he supposed to protect the whole world?

And, just like that, he’s back on autopilot. His voice comes out without any thought behind it. He finds himself winking, eyeing Castiel up and down like he would the best talent in a strip club.

“Well, bang-up job so far. Stellar work with the witnesses. That’s nice.”

“We tried.”

He actually sounds sorry. Dean notices and cannot give a good goddamn.

But maybe he should. Maybe he should’ve kept spiraling, kept himself from masking up, from protecting himself. He can see in Castiel’s eyes that it hasn’t done him any good. He’s done winning, if he ever managed to win anything in the first place. It’s a losing game from here on out.

“And there are other battles, other seals. Some we’ll win, some we’ll lose. This one we lost. Our numbers are not unlimited. Six of my brothers died in the field this week. You think the armies of Heaven should just follow you around? There’s a bigger picture here.”

He doesn’t move. Neither of them moves. Neither of them even blinks. And Castiel is using that to make Dean feel just like he did in the barn, like he can see right into Dean’s brain or soul or whatever and see everything that makes it tick. Everything that proves what they both already know. Dean’s a worthless little grub. Everything on Earth is bigger than him. Why shouldn’t Heaven and Hell be, too?

“You should show me some respect. I dragged you out of Hell. I can throw you back in.”

Dean’s stampeding heart just… stops. So does everything else. He blinks, and Castiel is gone. The kitchen’s gone. Dean’s gone. The only thing left is black.

He wants to scream. To shout, and cry, and flay the skin off his knuckles like Alastair made him do for five years straight in the Pit. He wants… Fuck, he knows _exactly_ what he wants, and it’s puny and selfish and useless. What he wants, more than anything in the universe, is to hate this thing. Just on principle. Just because it exists. It’s real, and God is real, and neither of them lifted a damn finger to save any of the people Dean’s watched die. Not Mom. Not Dad. Not Sam. But himself? Yeah, it just yanked him right out of Hell. And Dean and this thing both know that he doesn’t deserve that. He deserves to burn. If he didn’t, why would it threaten to throw him back in the Pit? He knows a bluff when he sees one, and this ain’t it.

And that’s the worst part, isn’t it? He knows he fucking deserves to go back down there, but just the thought of it has him two seconds from falling to his knees and begging like a damn baby. He deserves every second of it, but, fuck, he doesn’t _want_ it.

He wants to hate this thing with a passion.

But he doesn’t. This thing is right, and he can’t hate it.

Usually, that don’t matter. Right or wrong, you can still be a dick. And Castiel is definitely a dick. But Dean still can’t hate him. Not even with his brain detached and bricked up behind the only wall left that can give it an illusion of safety.

_Ping!_

This time, when his eyes flutter open, he recognizes it for what it is. And he realizes the mistake he made earlier.

Dreaming. He was just… fucking _dreaming_. And Castiel thought it would be all fine and dandy to go in there, into _Dean’s_ head, and… and say what he said.

Up on the couch, Sam shifts over. Naïve, well-rested, and completely unaware. Dean swallows down the unwarranted relief, the pity, the outrage. He swallows it down and focuses.

He’s gotta tell Sam. And Bobby. They can’t go walking into this thing blind. It’s fucking huge and way too much, but they’re the last line of defense. That’s what Dean’s gotta believe from all of this. They’ve gotta start scoping out seals. Knocking down bricks. Keeping this thing from blowing up even bigger than it already is.

And the first step there, whether Dean ever voices it or not, is wiping this good-for-nothing angel out of existence.

He swears, in this moment, that he will find a way to kill Castiel. Castiel, Lucifer, maybe even God Himself. But Castiel first.

Angel or not, it’s just another monster.


	3. Ally

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Takes place at the end of episode 4x7 (It’s the Great Pumpkin, Sam Winchester)

The Winchesters have never been big on allies. At least, the last two generations haven’t been. John had contacts, contacts that he passed down to Sam and Dean, but those aren’t the same thing. Contacts call you to give you a tip, or point you in the right direction to find the ammo to kill some hyped up bastard. Allies give you the tip in person and ride out to face the trouble with you.

Allies are a little too much like friends.

For John, that made them liabilities, unnecessary weak spots and cannon fodder that got in his way or tried to stop him in the middle of a job. For Dean, they’re more people to protect and, ultimately, let down.

So Dean can count on one hand all of the allies he has who are still kicking. Considering that one of them is Bobby and he has no idea where the other two are or if they’re even still alive, he considers it even less of an achievement.

But sitting on a park bench in Colorado next to a frickin supernova disguised as a tax accountant, Dean starts thinking he might have to tick off another finger.

Cas just sits there, silent, watching the kids run around and play in the park. A small, itchy part of Dean’s head—the part that can’t handle silence, even comfortable ones, with anyone who isn’t Sammy—wants to rib the guy. Something like, “Hey, you hiding any candy in that pedo-coat?” Not that Cas would get it. Still, the thought is there. Cas has this damn annoying habit of dropping bombshells like this all the time then acting all serene about it. Being a smartass is the only way Dean’s figured out to pay him back. It doesn’t seem to do half the damage, but at least Dean gets to see an Angel of the Lord’s confused face.

That need to mess with Cas is just a small part of Dean, though. The rest of him keeps casting glances at the angel over his shoulder and wondering what in the hell changed and when. The last time he spoke to Cas, he’d been reeling in all of the worst ways while Cas straight up threatened to kill Sam if he didn’t stop his extracurricular activities (and okay, apparently Dean isn’t the only one checking boxes in the “Supernatural Allies” column, but at least Dean’s isn’t some demon). Well, the last time they spoke in person, anyway. Dean wasn’t about to mention it to Sam, but he’s spoken to Cas a lot more in his dreams than he has in the real world. After that first time, dude got it in his head that the best way to get ahold of Dean was to invade his.

And that’s part of what’s throwing Dean for such a loop here. He’ll be the first to own up to the fact that there are a lot of ways to get on his bad side. Waking him up early, for one thing, or stealing the last beer from the fridge. But if anybody wanted to make Dean hate them, or at least never trust them, there are really only four ways: threaten Sam, threaten innocent people, invade any part of Dean’s property without his knowledge and/or consent, or tell him what to do.

In the past forty-eight hours, Cas has done all of those things. And, yet… well, here they are. On a park bench, in broad daylight, watching kids play on a swing set. They might as well be holding fucking hands.

Dean rolls his shoulders and tries to focus on those kids. The girls look real cute with their ponytails and braids. Two of the boys look like they’ve got the same age difference as him and Sam. None of them know how close they came to biting it today.

Three seconds, and he’s right back to staring at Cas.

Alright, so, he’ll give the guy a pass on Sam, but _just_ this once. He hasn’t said out loud, but, in his head, he’s started comparing Cas to that overly helpful cop who actually believes that turning in pot-dealing kids will turn their lives around. Sam is the pot-dealer in this scenario. Because, yeah, if Dean didn’t know his little brother, he’d be pretty creeped out by his new _Sixth Sense_ bullshit and demon girlfriend, too. He doesn’t have to be told that it doesn’t look good. For an angel, it has to be like meeting someone who’s dabbling in Nazism or some shit.

Regarding Plan A: Nuke the Whole City, though, he isn’t cutting Cas any kind of break. Jedi reverse psychology aside, he and Urinal Cake were still ready and willing to blow the place apart, all of these kids included, if Dean gave them the signal. Cas wouldn’t have liked it—or, at least, he said he wouldn’t—but that wouldn’t have stopped him. There’s no justification for that.

Same goes for the dream-walking shtick. Yeah, fine, Dean’s dreams anymore are just nightmares and flashbacks, so he can’t say he really objects to having them cut short every so often. And, despite his complaining, it’s only happened a handful of times. Maybe ten, but definitely not more than that. Still, though, it’s the principle of the matter. He wouldn’t want Sam, his own _brother_ , poking around in his head—what gives this complete stranger the right?

And nobody, even John Winchester now, has any right to tell Dean a damn thing about what to do. Full stop.

For all of the above, he ain’t about to just let everything slide. Angel or not, ally or not, Cas is still sketchy as hell. But—and this, this right here, is the part he has a problem with more than anything—Dean still _trusts him_.

Worse, though, is that, surprised as he pretends to be about it, he knows good and well what his motivation is for this new… _thing_. Dean’s dumb and he knows it, but he’s not a total idiot. He knows the score: regardless of how much of a dick the guy is and how thick the stick up his ass has to be, Castiel, Angel of the Lord, saved him.

And he’s never been saved before.

His dad sold his soul for him, Sam and Bobby fought their best to keep him from going to Hell, but those were all preemptive actions. (Yeah, Dean knows what “preemptive” means—suck it.) Nobody’s ever seen him at the end of his rope and reeled him in. Not succeeded at it, anyway.

Nobody’s ever “gripped him tight and raised him from perdition”.

Grateful as he is, he can’t help but roll his eyes at the memory—if Cas intends to stick around Earth-side for awhile, Dean is gonna _have_ to help him work on his vocabulary.

So, yeah, fine—that’s a pretty big fricking deal. You can’t just do that for Dean and _not_ have him look at you a little different.

But Cas is an angel. Harp, wings, halo—angel. Reading between the lines, he’s been around at least since the Sodom and Gomorrah incident (which, apparently, actually happened, and ain’t that a kick in the ass). He can send people back in time. Fuck, the dude stormed Hell itself and survived. And Dean doesn’t remember anything about that (but damn if Dean wishes he did, if only to knock out some of the other memories), but he knows that Cas went in with a full troop of winged crusaders. Cas is presumably the only one who made it out. He might look like a dork down here, but he’s a freaking badass where it counts.

Dean, though? Dean… Dean’s a _speck_. He’d always known that about himself, but, now, with the knowledge that there really are angels among them and that Hell is 5000% worse than anything that any human could ever fathom? That Lucifer is real and looming fucking closer as a threat every day? He’s never felt more insignificant. He is twenty-nine years old, and the only thing he can lay claim to is that at least Sammy never starved and he always had a roof over his head. Those are Dean’s only crowning achievements. Beyond that, he’s failed at every attempt to keep his baby brother safe, to make his dad proud, to do _something_ worthy of notice.

And, yet, not five minutes ago, Cas said that he was looking to Dean for guidance. Waiting for Dean to make the right choice. Which, apparently, he did, since it was the choice Cas was hoping he would make. More than that, though, Cas shared with him a secret. And it scares the shit out of Dean to know that even one of Heaven’s VIPs is having doubts about “the greater plan” or whatever, but the bigger part of him is relieved. He isn’t the only one chafing under this “destiny” crap. He isn’t the only one who thinks that God’s pulled the wool over all of their eyes.

For the first time in a long time, maybe his entire existence, Dean doesn’t feel so alone.

The wind knocks up some sand from the playpen, and Dean blinks to keep it from getting in his eyes. When he opens them, there’s a _whoosh_ , and, suddenly, Cas is gone.

He immediately turns around to see if anyone noticed. But nope—the kids, the little “works of art”, are still running around without a care in the world.

Dean glances once more at the now-empty park bench, a goofy little smirk lifting one side of his face. Dick or not, if Dean had to get saddled with an ally, he’s glad that it’s one with superpowers.


End file.
